Black, White & Shades of Gray: Leveraging Discovery to Write a Better Brand Story
While product, market, and user research are all now widely recognized as key components of product design, this wasn’t always the case. For a long time, we thought good ideas automatically made good products, good brands, and good marketing. (Remember Mad Men’s “It’s Toasted” success?) But taking on product design without doing research is the equivalent of having a conversation without...
Digital First - Rethinking the College Viewbook
Over the years, we have worked with many colleges and universities on a wide array of marketing materials, and we have found one common denominator when it comes to traditional student viewbooks: They tend to look and sound the same. The formulaic approach that so many colleges take to this printed brochure geared towards incoming students generally includes uninspired photography — students...
Tapping Into Emotion: 10 Tips for Driving Connections in Higher Ed Marketing
When it comes to the higher education experience, what are the hidden drivers of emotion? The elements that shape students’ lifelong aspirational connections to one university versus another? These are complex questions, with no clear-cut answers, especially when it comes to the science behind marketing, content, and the college connection. Obviously, what tugs at the heartstrings of one student...
Email Personalization and Segmentation: How to Maintain Relevance
As we prepare for our participation in the Greater Philadelphia Culture Alliance’s Annual Meeting, the focus of this year’s meeting, relevance, got us thinking about how organizations are ensuring they’re staying relevant with their messaging, specifically in their marketing. As I dug in and thought about all of the ways that email, in particular, can be relevant (topics related to specific...
Is It Done Yet?: My Journey Into Digital Project Management
I have been a Project Manager for as long as I can remember. My career started by accident (as many PM’s stories go), but here I am. I’ve been managing design projects for almost 10 years, from Philadelphia to New York and back to Philadelphia again. I’m here today to tell you about my transition from managing those design projects to managing the development of a website. My inherent optimism...
A Nomad Life: What Traveling the World Taught Me About UX
To date, I have lived in five countries and eight cities, including Caracas, Aix en Provence, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. I have also had the opportunity to learn three languages that I can now proudly say I speak fluently, in addition to my own mother tongue, Spanish. My travels and personal learnings have contributed greatly to my interest in human-centered design and user experience...
The Best Tools for Building an Email Template
In 2018, email marketing is more important than ever . As Eastern Standard’s digital content specialist, my job is made simpler because our clients write the email copy, and our amazing designers decide how the emails should look, while I build a new email campaign by repurposing our responsive block-based HTML email templates. Still, to make my contribution to the process go as smoothly as...
Collaborative Design Sprints — How to Survive Them (and Win)
On March 14th, two members of the Eastern Standard team participated in Adobe’s Creative Jam at Fringe Arts in Philadelphia. The Creative Jam is a three-hour-long UX design competition in which teams of two create an app or concept around a central theme. Each team then presents their work in front of a live audience for judging. As the coordinator for our team and attendee of the Jam, I decided...
Excursion in Austin: Takeaways From SXSW 2018
SXSW’s Interactive conference and festival is a melting pot of ideas and leaders across disciplines and industries, offering an opportunity for unique insights. As a UX Strategist, this was a chance to gain a bigger perspective on the work I do and beyond (as well as taste some authentic Austin BBQ). Here are some of the big takeaways I gained this year. Designing Beyond the Page The word “...
Guest Post: Marketing Plans for Arts & Culture Made Simple
In this special guest post, Dawn covers some of the unique challenges faced by arts and culture organizations in their marketing efforts. With over than 25 years spent supporting the arts, entertainment, and media industries, Dawn Frisby Byers has held senior-level marketing positions for the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, The Kimmel Center’s...
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